MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – THE FINAL RECKONING. It took me until the previous Reckoning to realize that, among its many other fine and compelling attributes, one of the great successes of the Mission: Impossible franchise, at least in its late-stage iterations, lies in its simultaneous fealty to its origins — cinematic, not so much the television […]
John J. Bennett
Posted inArts + Scene
Warfare is No Recruitment Film
WARFARE. Of the weekend’s offerings, Thunderbolts* is loudly being touted as a return to form for the MCU. It’s no secret that I don’t particularly care for the form, and despite the cast and crew of this latest noisemaker seeming more interesting and varied than the usual, I just couldn’t — or didn’t, if we’re […]
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Bloody Havoc
HAVOC. The most linear, lowest resistance path to Gareth Evans’ latest is most likely an accidental one. Dropped unceremoniously onto Netflix, where algorithmic manipulation, more than fandom or genuine interest, is intended to steer traffic its way, Havoc would hardly seem positioned for lasting — even fleeting, viral — success. Casual Tom Hardy fans might […]
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Original Sinners
SINNERS. To turn any original movie into a hit these days is a dicey proposition at best, given the fearfulness and uncertainty of the industry (as it once was and perhaps never again shall be), let alone the ambivalence of an audience hamstrung by distractions, paranoia and the omni-present spectre of intellectual property as guiding […]
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Back to the ’80s
FREAKY TALES. Sometimes good things do happen. Not geopolitically, it would seem, but at least occasionally at the multiplex. With zero foreknowledge, I stumbled across the poster for Freaky Tales, emblazoned in neon green and tantalizing us (especially we NorCal kids of a certain age) with the tagline, “In 1987 Oakland was hella freaky.” OK, […]
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Death of a Unicorn‘s Satirical Magic
DEATH OF A UNICORN. Magical realism is, pun intended, one of the trickier genres to both execute as a creator and to navigate as observer/reader/audience. Because it relies even more heavily on suspension of disbelief than its really only slightly less fantastical cohort, we in the cheap seats need a cohesive, compelling vision to allow […]
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Leigh’s Soft Touch in Hard Truths
HARD TRUTHS. Loath as I am to contribute to the ongoing erosion of the cinematic theatrical experience, and legitimately intriguing as Ash or Locked or Novocaine may seem — genre exercises, all, with promising hints of 21st century cheek and worldliness — circumstances will intrude. And so, for now, I’ve missed Flying Lotus’ undoubtedly singular […]
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September 5 Goes Live
SEPTEMBER 5. Being of a certain age and something of a masochist, trigger warnings aren’t really my thing. Times being what they are, though, it only seems appropriate in this case to preface these remarks with the disclaimer that September 5 centers its narrative on one of the more broadly visible events in the ongoing […]
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The MonkeyGets Weird
THE MONKEY. My close reading of Stephen King — now three quarters of a lifetime ago, was defined by morbid curiosity — a fascination with the seemingly endless, dark wellspring of the author’s imagination. The books were scary, sure, but they were also compelling for their weirdness and perversity and examination of Evil as an […]
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Nickel Boys‘ Powerful Perspective
NICKEL BOYS. There is a school of thought among filmmakers (Friedkin springs to mind, probably some of the French New Wavers), which holds that the camera must have a distinct point of view, that it cannot simply be an omniscient third-party observer. This flies in the face of some deeply held values among cineastes (read: […]
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The Brutalist‘s Hard Edges
THE BRUTALIST. Although the nerd wires have been hotly humming for what seems like years, the arrival of Brady Corbet’s prospective magnum opus has felt decidedly anticlimactic here in the hinterland. Granted, most small towns lack a 70mm projector to do justice to the movie’s vaunted, arcane Vista Vision format, and the matinee crowd with […]
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PresenceMakes Itself Known
PRESENCE. I wouldn’t want to testify to it, but I would be willing to bet Steven Soderbergh has made more movies after falsely — but probably sincerely, at the time — announcing his retirement from that very pursuit than before. Just as I can’t say exactly when he issued that dire dictum, I would not […]